Author: Untitled

Originally published here.

I wanted to join #crit 101 in order to become a leaner who is able to gather knowledge and adopt useful skills independently. I believe that gaining this valuable skill will help me in the future in any aspect of life. I think that by joining this course I will improve my determination and I will gain a more positive attitude to working independently and I hope to reach this point at the end of the course with success.

How do you define independent learning (skills/characteristics)?

I define independent learning as working on you own without any form of help whatsoever, I think that by being an independent learner you gather pieces of information and useful knowledge by yourself and adapt the content into something useful and productive. It is a skill which is all carried out and manipulated by the individual and constantly changed until a useful end product becomes a success. However, clearly after viewing the video I now believe independent learning to  not be a process carried out solely by the individual but I now understand that it can involve others too, who help out in the process, using skills of communication and working together with cooperation.

Can you learn to become a more in(ter)dependent learner?

I believe that you can learn to become a more in(ter)dependent learner. Some are born with a natural confidence and a drive to succeed, others aren`t. I believe that those who aren`t have equal chances of success. Through reading the articles, I can see that these skills can be learnt and one can adopt these behaviours and gain the confidence and these vital skills if they are extremely motivated and determined to reach their goal. They can thrive in whatever they chose to do, this happens because of their motivation that they started with in the first place. If there is no driving force or determination, how will anything be carried out successfully? I believe this is a vital key, to become an in(ter)dependent learner there needs to be a catalyst to want the best and ultimately to achieve the best that one can possibly achieve in their hopes and desires.

Originally published here.

This weeks assignment was to question how valid and reliable my research from last week as. Here is my Google doc - #crit101 Validity and Reliability

This weeks reading built on last weeks by showing me what you also need to consider whether the evidence you collect is valid, shows what it is supposed to, and reliable, the source you get the formation from is trustworthy, but also to consider whether the method you are using is valid and reliable. By doing this week reading it has shown me that to conduct an effective piece of research you have to know what type of research you are doing but then to question whether that research is going to produce valid and reliable evidence and also conside who is behind the research whether they are an expert in their field or if they are lying.

These skill have shown me that to be a good interdependant learner you must be able to ask the right question to get the best out of your learning and not to be afraid to ask as by asking you only learn more.

WOW! I can’t belive we are half way already, what a intesting and enjoyable few weeks it has been. I think that i have made good pregress in the last 3 week as I have learned to trust my opinion and not doubt it ( which i do a lot) also to be scared to ask questions as you can only learn by asking! Which also helps when finding secodary evidence as i now know what questions to ask to the best out to my secondary evidence. So i would like to that YOU Mr Michie as you have helped me bring out the in(ter)dependant learner in me and shown me have to use it!! :)

Originally published here.

This weeks work was on research and enquiry.

Before I had even started my research on “What’s the best way to cook an egg” I had some reading to do to help me with my research process. From that reading I have learned that to better you research finding you should do preliminary research to find out more about the question you’re asked. So for my preliminary research I considered what is meant by the work “best” and whether it meant the fastest, the healthiest, the easiest way to cook an egg and by doing this it helped me choice which route to take.I have also learned that there are two types of research quantitative and qualitative, quantitative meaning facts and figure and i mostly used in science however qualitative is peoples feelings and opinions also to just understand and describe not to manipulate the situation.

I think I was successful at completing the project as we used primary evidence from the survey I designed and also by using research from online (secondary) that gave us information on the nutritional value of eggs and how to cook/eat it. By doing this it gave us an idea on what people think and what they are told on the best way to cook and egg. This is our finished assignment https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gre78Q5g3hX08iVkXR5ucXnsaV1ouBJIRlt3FMOWl1o/pub

To be honest I think I was an effective collaborator as I was the one to get people to work together also I was the one who was nagging at people to do some research and to get on to google docs so we could complete the assignment.

The challenges we had with this assignment was that the question was like an open book and we struggled to decide what route to go down also i struggled to decide what was meant by the word “cook” as it could mean on it own or the main ingredient of a recipe is egg? Another challenge we faced was to get all my group members on google docs at that same time so we could discuss and write up out finding i also i and trouble getting in contact with my group as they had a very busy week however I enjoyed working in my group as we got on well and they had some very intelligent ideas { not me though :) }also we were able to get out assignment done in a very short amount of time due to the lack of time to do research.

To answer you question you left on my blog in the last post, can teachers make you smarter my answer is yes anyone or anything that is there to improve your learning no matter what is there is going to make you smarter, it may not be in maths or English but they can make my smarter in politics or pop culture.

Originally published here.

I think that independent learning is to have the ability to use the resources you have at hand whether thats the internet or books, even your peers to help you learn. However I also think it’s about knowing when you struggling and not being afraid to ask for help even if it means you fail because by failing you will learn to succeed.

I chose to participate in #crit101 as I want to become a better independent learner and by taking this course I hope that it will help me this is because teens in today’s society are spoon fed the information they need to them which will NOT help them when it comes to A-Levels and University as they are ALOT more independent then GCSE is. As-well, I joined this course to provide me with the skills to find information out on my own and also to be able to know when I need help therefore to ask more questions that will get me the answers I need.

Lastly I think you can become more of an in(ter)dependant learner as it about using others to. We as children learn to play together so why can we learn to learn together? Using each other as a learning tool making each other smarter not just the teacher making us smarter?